My favourite movie of all-time has got to be Before Sunrise. It's a story about two young people who meet on a train and get off in Vienna, exploring it for the limited time that they have together. The movie is of the two characters, Jesse and Celine, walking and talking. It's not an action-packed film, nor is it one with an explosive storyline. However, it is an intensely-gripping story because the two strong leads drive the plot with their own personal stories that make for a very interesting conversation. As the story goes on, you grow more and more invested in these characters and the fleeting hours they share. I could go on and on about how much I love this movie - but please watch it for yourself if you haven't!
Being a huge fan of the film, I blame the romantic in me for dreaming up this idea of walking through Vienna like Jesse & Celine did. How naive and arrogant I was to think I was the first one to have this idea. There were plenty of Before Sunrise Maps online (thank you!) With one last day in Vienna, I started out by re-tracing their steps and walking the same paths they did 20 years ago.
We visited sites like the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts), Prater Park with its famous ferris wheel and the Opera Theatre. Out of those places, one of my favourites was Maria Am Gestade, the church where Celine talks about how a single place joins so much joy and suffering. I also savoured every second of sitting in the booth in Cafe Sperl - the exact same booth from one of my favourite scenes in the movie. Thinking about Vienna in the context of Before Sunrise makes it even more magical a city- perhaps its the romanticism of an old film. What also intrigued me was how everything looked exactly the same despite the 20 year gap between having filmed the movie and me experiencing Vienna for the first time. I almost felt like the story could have happened in 2015 - or that I could have well been there in 1995 (if it weren't for the characters' 90's clothes). It kind of struck me how our experiences as humans are sort of 'inconsequential' in the face of much more permanent things. Other than that, I feel so lucky to have seen this film before visiting Vienna. Could be one of the reasons why I loved the city so much, but that is not to say Vienna is not captivating in its own right - I definitely want to go back one day. :-)